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The Choro-Q remote control car sounds and looks like the perfect gift for a bored office executive. Surprise! Takara New ChoroQ, Q Steer, the world smallest and the highest performance Choro Q! Running in 6 directions! It’s an epoc making! Gotta love the Engrish on that site. Still, we know how fun is universal and should not let something like shoddy grammar stand in our way. If you’re interested in picking up the Choro-Q, it retails for a mere $12. Tags: wireless, Ogg, consumer electronics, ipod (Read the full post about ‘Choro-Q remote control car’…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 2:52PM by Darren MurphFiled under: HDTV, Home Entertainment It’s hard to tell exactly what’s so special about Swedish Valei Computer’s ZC-HV0105, but we’ll do our best to translate. This self-proclaimed Home Media Center looks an awful lot like a jazzed up router at first glance, and appears to tout a front LCD, DVI / component / S-Video / composite outputs, 720p / 1080i upscaling, support for an internal HDD, USB 2.0 connectivity, Ethernet and a slew of audio outs to boot. Best of all, this piece will play nice with a whole bucketful of formats including MP3, WMA, OGG, WMV, DivX, XviD and MPEG1/2/4. Sadly, we’ve no idea on the price, and worse still, we’ve a really bad feeling about it ever coming stateside. (Read the full post about ‘Swedish Valei Computer intros ZC-HV0105 media streamer’…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 1:51PM by Nilay PatelFiled under: Wireless After months of fevered debate, last minute legal maneuvering, bitchy press releases, and drastic reversals of course, the most boring part of the 700MHz saga begins tomorrow: the actual auction. Yep, the pre-battle snipefest between Google and Verizon is over, the last participants have registered, and the FCC has set a minimum price of $10 billion per five blocks of spectrum, so it’s time to ante up. Of course, the auction will take two months and is totally confidential and sealed, so we won’t know how anything plays out until March, but the FCC will be posting each day’s bids anonymously on its web site, so that’ll be fun. (Read the full post about ‘700MHz auction set to begin tomorrow, suits in a tizzy’…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 1:26PM by Donald MelansonFiled under: Digital Cameras Vision Research already has some pretty capable high-speed cameras under its belt, but the company looks to have outdone even itself with its latest model, which is apparently the first such camera to hit the one-million pictures-per-second mark. Of course, to grab that impressive burst of images you’ll have to settle for a 256×8 resolution, although you’ll still get a decent 6,315 pictures-per-second with the maximum 1280×800 resolution. Otherwise, you can expect 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of internal storage depending on the exact model (which includes both color and monochrome options), “unprecedented light sensitivity,” and Vision’s Extreme Dynamic Range feature, which’ll let you capture two different exposures within one single frame. (Read the full post about ‘Vision crosses the million-pictures-per-second with Phantom V12′…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 9:45AM by Evan BlassFiled under: Cellphones, Features, Portable Video In case you haven’t been following all the drama over at Engadget Mobile, Taiwanese smartphone kingpin HTC is seeing a rather unexpected customer backlash over sub-par video playback in recent devices employing Qualcomm’s MSM7xxx chipsets — apparently, handsets like the popular TyTN II and Touch Cruise were purposely shipped without drivers that would take advantage of the embedded ATI Imageon acceleration hardware. (Read the full post about ‘Poll: How did HTC mishandle the video driver controversy?’…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 12:42PM by Ryan BlockFiled under: Announcements Two new bits fresh from the Greener Gadgets Conference going down in New York next week! First up, enter right here to win one of five tickets to the conference! The rules are after the break — you know the score, we only ask that you don’t enter unless you absolutely know you can attend the conference on February 1st, (which we’ll confirm before awarding the prizes).The second bit will be a lot more interesting for the designers in the crowd. I’ll be one of the judges of the Greener Gadgets design competition at the conference, which will award the best green electronics design concepts with $4,500 in cash prizes. (Read the full post about ‘Greener Gadgets Conference: win tickets or enter your own gadget design to compete’…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 8:53AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: WirelessLTE took another big step forward with an announced specification approval by the 3GPP. Who are they, exactly? Try China Mobile, DoCoMo, ETRI, Motorola, Nokia, Intel, LG, Qualcomm, RIM, Verizon, Vodafone, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile… round about 80 of the industries biggest movers. That puts the spec on deck for inclusion in the forthcoming 3GPP Release 8. 3GPP LTE you’ll recall, is the 2010 (at the earliest) next generational followup to today’s GSM/UMTS data networks — just like WiMAX — offering 326Mbps peak downloads (173Mbps demonstrated) and 86Mbps uploads. So hearing Alan Hadden, GSA President, say “LTE is firmly on track” sure sounds sweet to us even if he is just hocking his wares. P.S. Hey, 3GPP. It’s cute that someone’s kid from your organization designed that logo and all, but seriously, this ain’t Romper Room.[Via TrustedReviews]Tags: plasma, robots, games, mobile phone (Read the full post about ‘LTE approved by 80 of the industries biggest — 326Mbps downloads on track for 2010′…)

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Posted Jan 23rd 2008 12:19PM by Joshua Topolsky AMD / ATI is bustin’ out with some new graphics cards for your gaming (or casual use) pleasure, and we’ve got details to share with you. The company has recently issued its Radeon HD 3870 X2 for review, and FPSLabs has the breakdown of the company’s new high-end gamer, pushing it to the limit with Hell-ride tests utilizing Bioshock, Oblivion, and F.E.A.R., amongst others. The card performed like a monster in most arenas, though when it went up against EA’s monster Crysis, even the dual-GPU card buckled under the intense pressure of the game, getting a surprise beating from the supposedly-less-powerful NVIDIA 8800GTS 512. (Read the full post about ‘AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 X2, 3650 and 3450 GPUs get reviewed’…)

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Sure, you could drop over a grand on a Philips Ambilight television if you want your TV to set a mood, or you can also turn any television into a giant glowing ambient light for just the cost of a single DVD. Created by Japan’s Kyouei Design, this minimal DVD contains a rainbow of soothing colors that you can display on your TV screen. It’s perfect for all those times you’re not engrossed in the latest episode of America’s Next Great Biggest 5th Grade Loser, or when you’re completely fed up with the writers’ strike. The Color Light DVD offers a truly mellow light show, gradually dissolving through its spectrum of colors in about 20 minutes. (Read the full post about ‘turn your tv into a huge mood light’…)

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For the latest info on the coolest gadgets, emerging technology and wired madness, subscribe to our full news feed or have it delivered to your inbox. Always free. Always unique. Thanks for visiting! If you ever wondered what would happen if you took a pair of iPod earbuds and magnified them by 500 times, the fine people over at Fred’s has eliminated the guess work for you. From the site: Sometimes bigger IS really better, especially when it comes to sound. That’s why we took a puny pair of earbuds, put them in Fred’s highly technical Way Big machine, and created 500XL - it’s 500 times the size of the original! How great will these look on your desktop alongside your mp3 player or PC? (Read the full post about ‘500XL Speakers; iPod Earbuds 500 Times The Size Of The Original!’…)

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